CelticCowpokes

Whole lot of photos goin on...

We're catching up on our photos again for this month.

Rebecca and Abigail had some Hallowe'en prep fun at school one day, then the next day came home with their butterfly witch outfits.  Rebecca wa really happy to have a skull wand (!).  The following three days were spent wearing these outfits.

Rebecca is now a tree climber, can you spot her in the tree?  This is one of her favorite maples in our backwoods, their 'secret woods'.  She likes climbing, but doesn't want to go too high (yet).

This past week saw us traveling to Kingston Peninsula to visit Nail Factory Falls.  While trying to find the falls, we found two big stone wheels in the woods near the river. 

Rebecca finds a leaf to throw in soon enough...

Last weekend, Sheena and I took a camping trip to Fundy National Park.  There's one campground open (headquarters) during this time of year.  Our campsite had a neat view of Alma and the wharf.  In the brisk morning, Sheena enjoyed a cup of oatmeal...

...while I enjoyed a pan of fried eggs and oatmeal.  What an excellent combination!

We spent two days hiking the wilderness of the Fundy highlands.  Most of the leaves had already fallen, but some were still hanging on.  This is a photo of the trail descending to Black Hole and the Little Salmon River.

 

On the same trail on the way back, there were sections of only hardwood trees.  It made for a mesmorizing view of the forest.

After our hikes, we took walks through the nearby village of Alma.  Here we see the boats in Alma's harbour resting on the bottom during low tide.  Alma is a dry dock, as the Bay of Fundy tides leave the wharf area completely during low water.  I was trying to figure out how the little wooden stilts go so perfectly into place.

On Thursday, I took Willow back to the Mary Pitcher Falls area, near Hammondvale.  Kris and I visited in August during an epic 32 kilometre trip of hiking and biking in the hot sun.  We had spent some time trying to find the falls and missed out on the bigger one that was in the same area.  This time, I wanted to get to the final and biggest waterfall and had a bit of different weather with frost and chilly temperatures.  These upper falls are the second largest on the Mary Pitcher stream. 

Getting to the largest of the Mary Pitcher falls (below) was fairly straightforward, except for the very end.  There was a sheer cliff at the end of the trail -- and in order to see the falls as pictured below, you have to go around the cliff, descend an old rockslide and wade a cold (and somewhat too fast) flowing Big Salmon River.  Needless to say, there was a bit of work involved to get this photo!

After soaking myself to get the photo, the below is a distanced shot of skivvy biking the return trip of 13 kilometres to my car.  Willow didn't seem to mind, but it was a bit awkward once I got closer to the well-travelled deer hunting grounds.  (And yes, that is a hunting vest on -- preventative as I was wearing a brown fleece!).

 

 

 

Abby's Birthday weekend

Abby was riding her new bike right away during her birthday party.

 

Abby and Grammy find a toad.  Abby put this toad in her bucket and carried it around for the day.

We all went apple picking at Mckay's Orchard in Kingston.  It is a beautiful upick orchard.  Abby must have eaten about 6 apples while we were picking.

Afterward, we had met with some friends at the Corner Market for some photos and great ice cream.

 

Birthday cake ice cream!

Later that afternoon, we took the kids for a bike ride.  Abby was saying, 'Mommy this is fun!' It was her first bike ride and she did awesome.  A natural!

Bears and Biking

On Sunday and Thursday last week, Willow and I went for bike rides on some of the woods and ATV trails around East Scotch Settlement.  Sunday's ride was in the evening and a little later than I usually go (especially after a not-so-fun incident earlier in the year where I promptly got lost for about half an hour in the woods about 30 minutes from home.)  So, on Sunday, I turned from Annidale Siding Rd onto the marked ATV trail (830), biked around a corner and saw a large black bear trotting about 20 feet in front of us.  The bear was heading in the same direction and Willow first saw it, ran closer and barked once.  Once she saw the size of the bear, Willow took off in the opposite direction, leaving me in her dust.  I yelled out and startled the bear enough that it too took off into the woods. Because the bear had took off in another direction, we continued biking along the trail.  For the rest of the short ride, Willow jumped at every snap of a stick or odd sound from the woods beside us.  She came back panting and took a couple of hours to settle down. It was quite the sight! I've always had a personal rule to make lots of noise in the woods -- and using that rule of thumb, I've never had any close run-ins with bears until this time when we were a bit more silent beforehand than perhaps we should have been.  To not see a bear means you're doing your job!

On Thursday, we went out again unphased for the most part, this time in the rain and with some more music from my bike bell.  We did see some more bear scat along the way on most of the trails we've taken, but I've yet to see what kind of bikes they're riding!  Here's a photo of Annidale Rd.

Here's a huge blueberry field just off the 830 trail leading to Salmon Creek Rd.

They had already harvested for the year, but there was still some trail mix available.

An old cemetary in the old community of Boydsdale off Annidale Rd.

A photo from last year's trip with Kris around the same area.  We found a great paw print from Mr. Bear. There's some good weight displacement there!

Enjoying the last bits of summer

Here's some photos updating everyone on some more recent things going on with us.  We've been trying to get out and enjoy the nice weather before winter comes! 

Kris came up a couple of weekends ago (a day before we had our 3 day big power outage, thank you TS Irene!).  Kris and I had a classic bike and hike trip -- traveling 32 kilometres round trip to the Big Salmon River area of the Fundy highlands.  Willow came with us as well and was the star or the show, running along beside us while we bicycled the hot dirt roads and bushwacked our way down river toward Mary Pitcher Falls.  The picture below is Upper Mary Pitcher falls, one of 13 along the same stream.  A larger set of falls lies below these pictured ones -- but we saved those for another time due to the length of time it took to get to the upper ones.  More details of the falls are on our waterfalls site.

 

Rebecca and Abigail have been growing fast.  Rebecca is now fairly comfortable on a bike with training wheels.  For a couple of days last week, we took Rebecca on little bike rides down our road.  The road is quiet enough that she can ride, but still learn about traffic and such. We expect Abigail will be riding outside soon.  We've brought her flyer tricycle inside and daily she's seen ripping around the house with her fireman hat and/or dress on.  It's good to see she's well rounded!

This past weekend was the ever popular Balloon Fiesta in Sussex.  We made a couple of trips to see the hot air balloons and fair this year -- but due to fog and wind (thanks TS Katia), the balloons weren't able to take off while we were there.  They did some 'cold inflation' for the crowds though, which was nice.  The different designs were neat to see.

Abigail looks through her balloon book trying to find all the balloons pictured in it.

 

'Cold inflation' at work.

 

Busy Season

Since the end of September, we've had lots going on.  First, on October 2nd, Abigail celebrated her 2nd birthday with friends and family.  We had visitors from both families, Gramma and Grampa MacDonald, Nana and Papa Deroche and other friends and their kids.  Sheena had the novel idea of having little gifts for everyone, which made for quite a fun and all inclusive party!  

The Cape Breton MacDonalds also visited for the weekend of Abigail's birthday.   Besides the party, we had a couple of walks through the woods and on the trails nearby our house. The leaves had just started turning colours at the time and the girls loved to explore the fall colours and different shades of fall.  

Last weekend, Kris and I met in the Memramcook area of southeastern New Brunswick for a little Thanksgiving weekend bike riding.  Specifically, we biked around the peninsula of the Beaumont area, which is surrounded by the Petticodiac and Memramcook Rivers.  We had a whole mix of riding during our 22 kilometre day, from gravel road to technical up and downhill trails.  It was an interesting place to bike as one moment you were in the forest, the next you are a steep embankment away from fast flowing rivers into the Bay of Fundy.  It was our first time taking a trail from a book on mountain biking in Atlantic Canada. 

  This week, I took a vacation and Sheena and I spent the last three days painting up a storm (literally) in our house.  We finally had the chance after some long needed new house renos to put paint on our walls.  We have half the house done so far and half to go!  Wish us luck. (The wall colours in this photo had to be redone due to, well, the fact that they caused blindness!). 

Spring Bike Riding

  Rebecca, Abigail, Willow, Sheena and I went outside a blustery changeable weather day for  some bike riding.  Rebecca recently tried a bike with training wheels and loved every minute of it.   Abigail is now trying the tricycle too.  (We'll probably make some sort of invention to push both kids and saving our backs at the same time.)

Biking to Scramble Mt. Fullerton

On Tuesday this week, I headed out to the Kananaskis area to scramble Mt. Fullerton.  Mt. Fullerton is located to the northwest of Nihahi Ridge, in the Elbow Valley area of Kananaskis.  After reading another scrambler's post on the trip, I decided to try biking to the mountain, in the hope of shortening the trip a bit.  I ended up biking about 95% of the way and experienced some of the best biking that I've done in Kananaskis.  To get there, I followed the Nihahi Creek trail off the Elbow Loop -- which is about an hour and a half ride.  The trail was excellent and mostly single track with a few rooted sections through the wooded area immediately after turning north from the Elbow Loop trail.  Once you descend from the woods, I really enjoyed the travel along the creek bed (especially on the slight downhill grade on the return trip).  I found that if sticking to the east side of the creek closest to Nihahi Ridge, there's a distinguishable track for great biking. 

I arrived at the mountain, dumped my biking gear and decided to head up the drainage toward the ridge ascent.  The drainage was interesting, mostly clambering up rocks -- at least until I encountered the snow.  I noticed that a recent weekend-long rainfall in Calgary had accumulated a significant amount of snow in this area of the mountains.  While heading up the drainage, I kept to the forest slope as much of the snow was knee deep.  And stupidly, I forgot my gaiters at home, so I was eager to keep my feet dry as much as I could.  This was eventually a futile effort :) . Attaining the ridge was fairly straight forward, however on the ridge is where I encountered a bit more difficulty. 

Naturally, the higher I went, the more the snow had accumulated among the rocks that lined the  ridge ascent.  I kept to the drainage side of the ridge, hoping to escape the real deep snow and holes among the rocks, but it was a slippy affair in the ankle to knee deep melting snow.  Eventually and with alot of kick stepping, I reached the top of the ridge and managed to scramble to about 25m before the summit block.  I stopped here as the snow was waist deep and the summit looked too treacherous for my liking with all the snow.  I probably would have had a good challenge without snow, but it was a bit out of reach at the moment.  So, after eating my lunch and taking a few panorama pictures of the summit (great view of Calgary and the foothills from there), I made the slow and slippy descent back to my bike.  This time I took the woods, which was fairly steep, but sparse with snow and trees.  The final section is mossy and thick woods, but a few game trails allow for easy passage.  Given the snow conditions, I was glad I took the relatively straight forward drainage ascent.

Arriving at my bike, well, I was surprised a bit.  I found that most of my biking stuff was still there, but I was missing my biking gloves!  I looked around for them, but noticed that my shoes had been disturbed by someone or something.  I figured some squirrel or magpie had taken the gloves for bedding -- as I just couldn't see someone biking 6-8kms on a not so well traveled trail from Elbow Loop to take my gloves.  So after a few good laughs and reciting some favorite arguments and rants along the way, I headed back to the car glove-less! 

It was about an 8k trip to the mountain, with a round trip time of 6 hrs. I posted a few more photos on flickr.

Winter biking in Calgary

The past week and a bit have been pretty cold out in here in the prairies, we've been averaging temperatures of -15, even bottomed out at -32 last night.  For the most part though, it hasn't stopped me from biking to work at least three days a week.  Sheena took this photo of me, taking off on the coldest day I've biked so far, -23 C.  It wasn't too bad getting to work, but really I started to realize the cold at about 13 of 15 kms.  Thankfully, you stay warm for most of the trip, but nearing the end, the sweat freezes and things get a bit chilly.  Nevertheless, with some good and warm biking gear (including Nana's knitted wool socks, my favorite), it's still good exercise!  When it's snowy on the roads, I take the old mountain bike seen here.  After it's cleared up (usually from a Chinook), I break out the road bike again.

Here's a sample of what I've found works for the cold and dark winter riding:
ski goggles, lycra balaclava, waterproof breathable pants, long johns, reflective bike shoe covers, two pairs of mitts (shell and inner), breathable tee shirt, fleece under jacket, gortex shell, and few neat flashing LED lights.  Thankfully, most of the stuff I also use for hiking, which makes it easier.  Still cheaper than taking the car though!

I really do wish the city would build biking paths that cross the north part of the city from west to east.  Currently, most of the biking paths are focused on downtown -- where the typical commute takes place I guess.  I don't mind the weather, but the traffic on northern roads does get the best of me sometimes. 

The other Sentinel Pass

This weekend, Sheena and I embarked on a fun adventure...this time with company, couple of friends of ours, Dean and Laura.  All of us headed out to the very bottom of Kananaskis Country, in an effort to avoid crowds and snow and to do a little biking and hiking.  The area we headed to is south of Highwood, within the Cataract Creek area...even more south than we had been last year.  The area is usually clear of snow earlier than the rest of the mountain areas and as we had discovered last year as well, is quite warm.  This time, well, we found what we were looking for -- no people -- but the conditions were still a bit on the snowy side. 

The way there is not without its adventure.  Because the roads to south Kananaskis are closed due to weather and animal protection between Dec 15 and May 15th and/or June 15th, other routes are necessary to get to areas which we find are really off the beaten path.  Our little map shows how we travelled -- which during the summer would have been simply south on Hwy 40.  Anyway, this was not the best part of it.  Basically, from Hwy 22, we headed into the mountains via a forestry trunk road, the type of which we wrote about in other adventures.  Think of a road like the Cabot trail, but minus paving and guardrails.  Oh, and also add rockslides, debris, texas gates and animals.  It certainly was a chance for us to test out the Matrix 4wd (although I really yearned for a disposable rally car) and it was a lot of fun. We also realized that the road was being widened, perhaps due to an expansion of the more travelled areas of K-Country.  So, after about a half hour drive from the main road (which was 1 1/2 hrs from Calgary) and some scenic views on the dirt road, we arrived at the trail-head.  Funny how hiking books sometimes neglect important information.

We suited up for our bike trip and realized the trail was going to be a fair bit muddy.  The trip continued north along a utility road which was made eerie by the low fog and cloud cover.  We were grateful for our bling (bells) and the occasional shout to 'Boady' (Dean and Laura's dog) to stay on the trail...and warding off the possible bear of course.  For about 2 hours, we climbed steadily along road and trail leading toward the meadows before Sentinel Pass.  It was here where we dumped our bikes for hiking shoes and headed up the gentle slope to Sentinel Peak's sister mountain. Before going, we had hoped to ascend Sentinel Peak, but after arriving in the area, realized that snow accumulation might make going a bit longer than we hoped.  The ridge line leading to Sentinel Peak had fairly large snow cornices high above the trail, making any travel slightly dangerous as well. (I even noticed a few snow slides as we were ascending the opposite hill.)

We hiked the rock and grassy hills to reach the top, taking quite a few photos.  [Side note: Recently, through a friend, I came across an excellent program for making panorama photos out of normal (but numerous) photos.  Having tried a few samplers at home, I was eager to capture this view entirely.  The program worked nicely and really shows what type of scenery we were facing.  Check out the photo here.] Sentinel Peak is the high point in the far right of the panorama photo.  It was quite a sight after a muddy trail ride to the area.

The ride home was awesome.  We rode through mud, accumulating it on our bikes like crazy and well, on most of our clothes.  It took us just 35 mins to cover a 2 hour uphill ride, with a few pit stops of course.  The ride home was a bit less clothed than usual (mental note: to protect car interiors, bring a few extra pairs of either blankets or pants).  We began the drive home and discovered a great store in Longview.  A dedicated beef jerky shop! We bought some samples -- and I'm surprised to say, it was quite a bit better than Chris Brothers beef jerky.  Run by an easterner, I guess they ship across the country. 

 

Drumheller: Biking, cacti and desert!

Last Sunday, Sheena and I made a day trip to Drumheller, which is about 130kms northeast of Calgary.  Drumheller is a very unique place in Alberta, with grand canyon type landscape, cut into the prairie.  The canyons and rock formations are so unique, they almost look unreal.  Drumheller has also a desert type climate and terrain, full of cacti, dry caked mud and other grasses unique to the area.  It is a world reknown hot bed for fossils and palaeontology and home to the Royal Tyrrell Museum.  We had outdoor activity in mind, so we weren't able to stop at the museum on this trip.  However, from what we saw, it is HUGE and nestled within the canyon formations just outside of Drumheller.

So, with biking in mind -- I had seen some neat mountain biking trails on a few tv programs and wanted to check them out.  After a short visit to the info centre in Drumheller, we headed to Horsethief Canyon, a spot for hikers, bikers and the like.  To our surprise, we barely saw any people at the canyon when we arrived and throughout the day.  Occasionally, you'd see some people hiking in the distance, but for the most part, Sheena and I explored the canyon enclaves on our own.  There  were certainly lots of birds, gophers and cacti!  I've never seen any in Canada before, so that was quite a treat.

We spend a few hours exploring the canyon walls, prairie floor and a few other treats along the way.  Near the end of our day, we decided to cool off and find some shade near the Red Deer River bank.  We waded for a while in the water, enjoying cooling off from the day's hot sun.   After lunch and resting up, we made our trek back to the car, which involved a fair bit of hiking up some steep slopes.  Nevertheless, it was a fun day..and a good break from the big city.